GBA4iOS is a Game Boy emulator for iOS. With this, you can play games that were released for Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color, and the original Game Boy. Downloading and installing the emulator is free, and there are copies of any game you could imagine available online. The GBA4iOS installation process on iOS is straightforward, and only requires you to change the date on your device. It will work on iOS 9.3.1, 9.3.2, 9.3.3, 9.3.4, and 9.3.5. It does not yet work for iOS 10, so don't update yet if you can.

Steps

Part 1

Installing GBA4iOS

1

Prepare to change your device's date. In order to get the app to work, you'll need to change the date on your device as you're installing it.

Open the Settings app.

Tap "General" and then "Date & Time."

Toggle "Set Automatically" off.

Press the Home button to return to the Home screen. This will leave the Settings app open to the correct screen so that you can quickly change it later on in the process.

2

Start the app installation. You'll be downloading the app through Safari instead of through your device's App Store.

Open Safari on your device.

Visit https://www.pgyer.com/0sZi. This is a version of GBA4iOS that works on the latest iOS versions.

Tap the "Install App" button and then tap "Install." This will begin downloading the app to your device.

3

Press the Home button after tapping "Install." This will show you the new GBA4iOS icon. When you see the icon on your Home screen switch from "Waiting" to "Loading," move on to the next step.

4

Double-tap the Home button and select the Settings app. This will switch back to the Date & Time section of the Settings app.

5

Tap the date and roll it back to any date in 2014. You'll likely have to scroll through the list of dates for a while until you reach a 2014 date.

6

Wait until the app finishes installing. Return to your Home screen and find the GBA4iOS icon. You'll need to wait until it is finished installing and the loading circle on it has gone away before moving on.

7

Return to the Date & Time screen in Settings and toggle "Set Automatically" on again. This will set your device back to the correct day and time. This should only be done after GBA4iOS has finished installing.

8

Allow your device to trust the developer. You'll need to allow apps from the developer in order to load GBA4iOS. You can do this from the General section of the Settings app.

Open the General section of the Settings app.

Tap "Device Management." You'll find this under the "VPN" option in the General menu.

Tap "Beijing HL95 Info-Industry Co.,Ltd." This will display a list of apps from that developer, which should just be "GBA4iOS."

Tap the "Trust" button at the top of the screen. Tap "Trust" again in the pop-up menu that appears.[1]

9

Launch GBA4iOS. At this point, you can launch GBA4iOS and it will load properly. You'll be prompted to allow notifications when you start it, which you can enable or disable to your own preference.

Part 2

Loading Games

1

Open Safari on your iOS device. The easiest way to get ROMs on your device is to load them into GBA4iOS directly from Safari. You can load as many ROMs as you'd like this way, and GBA4iOS will manage their storage.

2

Visit a ROM site. There are a variety of sites that host GBA ROMs that you can download on your iOS device. Popular sites include:

loveroms.com

emuparadise.me

freeroms.com

3

Open the Gameboy Advance section of the site. This will let you browse through all of the GBA games available for download.

4

Find the game that you want to download. The games on the ROM sites are organized alphabetically, so find the game that you want to download and tap the link for it.

5

Start the download process. This will vary depending on the site. Be careful not to tap any buttons that may be disguised as download links. Look for links that say "Direct download." You may have to wait for a timer to count down before the link becomes available.

6

Tap the "Open in..." button. This will appear once the download has started. You'll see the ZIP file that you're downloading in the center of the screen.

7

Select "Copy to GBA4iOS" from the menu. You may have to scroll to the right to see it. This will switch to GBA4iOS, where the game will appear in the list.

8

Tap the game in the GBA4iOS ROM list to load it. The game will be loaded in the emulator, and you can start playing it. Use the on-screen controls to play the game.

Part 3

Troubleshooting

1

Remove the app if the initial installation didn't work. If you weren't able to get GBA4iOS working the first time after installing it, you'll need to delete the app before trying again. Press and hold the app until it wiggles, then tap the "X" to delete it.

2

Make sure you're changing the date as the app is installing. It's crucial that the date be changed as the app is installing, not before or after. As soon as you see the app switch from "Waiting" to "Loading," switch to the Date & Time menu and change the date as quickly as possible.

3

Make sure you're setting the date to 2014. When you go to change the date, you'll need to set it back all the way to a date in 2014. This means you'll have to scroll for a while, since the date wheel moves one day at a time.

4

Avoid updating to iOS 10. The release version of iOS 10 fixes the date bug that allows GBA4iOS to be installed. There is currently no version of GBA4iOS that can be installed on the release version of iOS 10.

Community Q&A

Press the "Done" option, then go to settings, then to device management, and then "Trust the developer." Then go back out and tap on the GBA4iOS icon, and it will start to download. If it doesn't start downloading, refer to the troubleshooting section of this article. Alternatively, if you are fast enough, you can just press retry instead.